Ghosted by friend/colleague

[pascheretloire]

I've been friends with a woman at work for about four years. Good friends, or so I thought. She is funny, kind, just lovely.

A couple of months ago she said she was moving to a city about an hour from where we both live, to live with her boyfriend. I've only met her boyfriend a couple of times, and he seemed very nice. I was happy for her, albeit a little sad at losing a friend and ally at work. She handed in her notice, we went for drinks and a meal for her leaving do, and a month ago, she moved.

We usually text quite a lot, but I didn't think anything of it when she hadn't at first, as I know how busy and stressful moving house is. However, when I hadn't heard from her for over a fortnight, I rang her. Only to find that her number is not in use. Strange, I think, so try messaging her on Facebook, but she appears to have deleted her account (not blocked, I checked). Her Instagram is also gone. I then started to worry, and checked out the new address she's given me, and it doesn't exist.

I'm really worried. It's just so unlike her to do something like this. And I have no way at all of contacting her. I've actually cried at the thought of losing a friend like this, but also worrying that she is maybe being controlled by her boyfriend. She has an unusual name, but absolutely nothing is showing up on anywhere like LinkedIn, it's as if she's vanished off the face of the earth, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Has anyone experienced anything like this, or have any advice?

It seems vastly more likely to me that she made a mistake with the address than made one up, and she's just moved on. Is it like 21 Westbury Road doesn't exist, but 21 Westbury Avenue does, or something?

@ForeverInADay I think I just said something like let me have your new address, and she texted it to me. No pressure, just seemed a natural thing to do.

@KeflavikAirport as far as I can see there are no streets with the similar names. The postcode doesn't exist either.

Bizarre and unsettling - I’d definitely ask for a welfare check.

Someone I used to be close to, got her sister to contact all her friends to say she’d passed away, no funeral, no flowers. A few years later it appears she’s alive and well. She’d had a serious alcohol addiction and after rehab, decided to reinvent herself and that included cutting all of her former friends off.

Could it be something like that?

Hi, Im gonna go with MH crisis rather than lottery win or undercover spy. Was she under any pressure at work, do you have any idea if her background before you became friends? Sometimes everything piles up, and a person can’t see a way through without a clean slate, they convince themselves that they and everyone else would be better off starting afresh. Maybe her partner is colluding in this, or maybe they split up and she just never said.

It is amazing how mentally unwell people can put on their sham “work face” and function apparently normally, but underneath things are rapidly disintegrating and the effort to maintain that front becomes very difficult. With Workplace friendships that don’t run very emotionally deep it can be hard for the mentally unwell person to broach the subject of their problems, as it would crack that facade they have built which is literally all that gets them through the day. They may even enjoy the respite of having a friend who doesn’t know how broken and fraudulent they feel.

The pity is if this is what’s happening, your friend probably feels sad and guilty about ditching you, but those emotions are too painful to take on board and so it is easier to avoid you, and avoid those feelings, by disappearing. Whereas in reality if she simply got in touch it might make her feel better.

Tell your HR and her old LM you are concerned about her. They can’t necessarily tell you if she gets in touch, or what address she redirects her pension admin to, but they could send a message back to her if she requests a reference, saying “lovely to hear from you, you’re greatly missed in your team and Pascheretloire would love to catch up on your news but has lost your contact details, she’d be so delighted to hear from you!”

I am sure some friends/colleagues thought this of me but I had to move and stop using all social media due to my ex’s abuse.

To most people it would seem I ‘disappeared’ but it was for my family’s safety.

I would be moved, but also quite scared, if a former colleague started a hunt for me.

Sending a card to the old address with note on front to please forward sounds simple and non intrusive compared to drawing in former colleagues, family, work places, neighbours, police etc.

But it might be in her best interests to stay under the radar, even from former friends. It’s @3yrs on for me and I have only reconnected with a handful of people.

I have a former circle of friends I disappeared from years ago. I had my own reasons but I wanted to end the friendship and move on. They also must wonder what on earth happened to me and probably still do occasionally. I expect they were just as baffled at my sudden disappearance. Essentially I discovered their loyalties to me were not exactly what I thought they were and I was not able to trust them at the time. Basically they were friends with someone who was out to do me harm and kept divulging my business to them, thinking that person was just showing a genuine interest in me. I didn't want to be found. 20 years later I occasionally visit the town a couple of them lived in and still worry I might walk straight into them and have to make excuses why I vanished all those years ago.

@pascheretloire
Requesting a welfare check from the police is probably a big thing for you to do. But to the police it is a very regular request and they do lots of them for many different reasons.
When I'm not sure whether or not to do something i always look at regret. Which could you regret most? Reporting it? Or not reporting it?
It's an awful situation for you to be in, you sound like a good friend.

"Drawing in the police" is not a big thing to do at all. Nothing will come of a forwarded note. The only likely outcome is delay and sending a red flag to any potential trafficker that she needs to be moved.

regarding the fake address: could it be a new build? A friend moved into a new build that hadn't been listed/registered yet. Getting things delivered was a nightmare as the address didn't technically exist yet.

@MaliceOrgan

regarding the fake address: could it be a new build? A friend moved into a new build that hadn't been listed/registered yet. Getting things delivered was a nightmare as the address didn't technically exist yet.

Yep same happened when my brothers in law moved to a new build, we were trying to post them something but couldn’t remember the post code, Googling the street name and area didn’t bring anything up because it was so new, nothing on google maps for it either

Yes i had that once too, tried to find new doctors surgery on gps, it was a pain in the bum.

I know someone (being deliberately vague) who is bi-polar and made up an entire lie about their life to their work. They created a complete fantasy life to their colleagues. It only came out when they had a breakdown.

Very weird and a bit worrying OP. So confusing and strange.

Could the dates be a code of some sort?! I might be overthinking this…

ADDRESS - not dates, sorry. Could the address be alluding to somewhere meaningful without saying something overtly?

Oh for goodness sake.

Less code cracking, more 'Hello officer, my close friend disappeared out of the blue and I would like you to check this was her choice.'

Sorry OP.

Agree with the welfare check suggestion.

I would think she has intentionally vanished. Nothing personal to you as an individual but my impression is that she wants a new start

[quote pascheretloire]@happinessischocolate I'm not sure if they would have it. Work doesn't have mine. Any communication is via work email or phone. [/quote]
Work will normally have an email address for all their employees, whether it's from the original job application, the cv, an email address for payslips or just a contact. There's only 2 people at my work who don't have an email address and that's because they believe conspiracy theories and think the government will track them down through emails 🙄

How can the police do a welfare check when the OP doesn’t know where she’s gone?

Very upsetting. She has intentionally made it impossible for you to stay in contact. I would try writing a letter in case it gets forwarded, but I suspect she feels strongly that she wants a break for whatever reason. I'd say something like, hey, it seems you don't want me to find you, but just know that I miss you and if there's ever anything I can help with, I'm here. Try not to take it personally. It's very unlikely to be something you've done.